There is what is called production printing for printing and binding a huge amount of commercial documents (see Patent Document 1, for example). Patent Document 1 discloses a printing system capable of notifying a user of whether a post process is available in consideration of an entire portion of the printing system.
In the production printing system, a printing process is often handled as a workflow. There is a trend of opening printing workflows. Through opening, it is possible for software (a workflow application described below) and printing devices of various companies to describe setting of print jobs in a main process of printing in a common description method. A standard format called Job Definition Format (JDF) is known as a format for describing an entire portion of the printing workflow.
The printing workflow has various types of processing such as creation of a document or contents, specification of a printing method, printing, and post processing. Although each process is performed by various workflow applications and printing devices, the JDF enables cooperation between the printing devices, printing process control, and the like irrespective of difference of the workflow applications and difference of manufacturers of the printing devices.
However, if the workflow application made by each software manufacturer has extended the JDF, a description specific to the workflow application may be included in the JDF. In this case, there may a situation where a workflow application or a printing device positioned downstream cannot analyze or process the JDF.
In order to solve such a problem, the workflow application or the printing device positioned downstream may convert a JDF created by the workflow application positioned upstream into a format that can be handled by the workflow application or the printing device positioned downstream (see Patent Document 2, for example). Patent Document 2 discloses a printing method, in which when a Personal Computer (PC) transmits print instruction information described in JDF codes to a printing device, the printing device obtains, from received print instruction information, an application name of an application program that created the print instruction information, transmits the application name to a server, and the server transmits JDF analysis data for the application name to the printing device.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2012-238188
Patent Document 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2013-088992